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How To Fast Track Your Article Marketing Program: Deadly Sins For An HTML Resource Box

Written by: Karen Scharf

Article Overview: Despite the general ease of article marketing, there are several "fatal" mistakes you can make that will make all your efforts nothing but wasted time. One of the biggest mistakes is "messing up" your author's resource box. Brad McGovern, Marketing Manager of Article Marketer, offers advice regarding crafting your perfect author resource box.

How To Fast Track Your Article Marketing Program: Deadly Sins For An HTML Resource Box

I usually try to convince all of my clients that they need to start marketing by distributing articles to various relevant sources. Article marketing is a great way to position yourself as the expert in your field, and there are several great web resources that make the process extremely easy.

Despite the general ease of article marketing, there are several "fatal" mistakes you can make that will make all your efforts nothing but wasted time. One of the biggest mistakes is "messing up" your author's resource box. Brad McGovern, Marketing Manager of Article Marketer, offers the following advice regarding crafting your perfect author resource box:

The resource box; that place all your article writing efforts have been headed. It is possibly the most important part of your article. This is where you tell about yourself, your offer and provide contact information. No big deal on the face of things, but it where the effectiveness of many articles die on the table.

There are 2 basic types of author's resource boxes:

Plain text: Your information is written in plain text as are your links to URLs. All publishers accept text resource boxes. They are fairly simple and straightforward.

HTML: In this version of the resource box, you are allowed to hyperlink to anchor text (specific keywords/phrases) giving you considerable more leverage with the search engines. Many, but not all, publishers accept this type of resource box.

When submitting articles through a distribution service, you are usually offered the opportunity to include a version of each with your article. The length of these boxes is very limited: between 200-500 characters as a rule. It is up to the author to maximize the benefit of their links and pitch in that space.

It's critically important when using HTML hyperlinks to include your most powerful keywords as the anchor text. The assumption made is that you researched keywords for your article and will use the most relevant ones here as well.

Following is a list of the most common "Deadly Sins" that kill off the effectiveness of HTML resource boxes:

* Too many words in your anchor text

Some of the major publishers only allow up to three words of anchor text in a hyperlink. Not all publishers have this rule, so check with the submissions guides of all the major directories you target.

Remember also that the characters used in links counts against the total characters in your box. Using three or less for anchor text will allow you more to use elsewhere in your box.

* Hyperlink your business or proper name

Anchor text is supposed to give your search engine optimization a boost by using major keywords. Links receive special attention from search engines when they index that page for later reference; much the same way headings and bolded text do.

Since using your name or your business name in articles is basically forbidden as self-serving and spammy, this creates a problem. The search engine compares anchor text to the article body to match up keywords. Your article will not have a match in the body because you can't include those names in it. The search engines will dismiss the page as not relevant, making it hard for anyone to find your article.

* Keywords are not hyperlinked or the link proper and anchor text are redundant.

This happens, for example, when a regular URL is hyperlinked as the anchor text. You are losing most of the potential benefits of hyperlinking. Always use keywords as anchors.

* Submitting a link only in the resource box without any accompanying text

Many publishers as well as readers frown on this. They see you in one of two ways: someone just interested in building backlinks or only interested in selling something. Many publishers will reject articles that do this for this single reason.

Always include biographical information and a text version of your name or business at a minimum in your resource box. To do otherwise, leads publishers and readers alike to view it as self-serving spam.

* Linking to the same page more than once

This doesn't make sense on several levels. It is like repeating your phone number to someone twice without being asked for it. Search engines only "see" it as one link. It is wasting valuable characters that could be used for bio information or another link deeper in your site.

This is another fault some publishers use when screening articles. It may key a rejection of your article. They see it as spammy and self-serving.

* Too many links in the resource box

Some publishers allow three links in the resource box and others only two. It is on the author to know the submission guidelines for the publishers they are submitting their work to for distribution. Most top-shelf distribution services set their limit at two links by default to offer a greater chance that their articles will be picked up by publishers.

* Great text resource box, bad HTML resource box

Some authors do a nice text box but in laziness hyperlink a keyword or phrase only in the HTML box. This is a bad practice. In most cases, readers only see one version or the other; not both. If a publisher uses HTML boxes, this may get an article immediately rejected as spammy.

One great way to make a killer HTML resource box is to copy and paste your text resource box into the HTML and modify to work there. Use the copy from your text resource box, but hyperlink the keywords, and also hyperlink the written out URL.

Personally, article marketing accounts for tons of our own website traffic as well as thousands of subscribers to our email list. I encourage you to get started with your own article marketing program today.

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Article Tags: article marketing, online marketing



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